"The more I think about Microsoft, the more I realise that they are, possibly for the first time, seriously cornered (or surrounded, depending on how you want to see it). A little history will clarify why I think so - and why I think that this might really be the beginning of the end for Microsoft."

Microsoft will indeed have lots of problems - mainly because they're so big, they can't do anything to stop losing market. Their monopoly is an anomaly that will get fixed in some way or another. Because they can't grow more in the windows/office market, they've started fighting the WHOLE technology industry to gain market share in other areas: Linux/Apple/Sun/IBM, Google/Yahoo, Sony/nintendo...right now they're trying to sell the Zune, which is a media player which competes...against the same companies that Microsoft is trying to convince to use their online music shop! It's a fight they can't win.

But they've enought cash to redo themselves. They could throw away all their products and start from scratch. So it's unlikely they're going away, kinda like IBM. Who knows, in 20 years they may become the best OSS supporter

This writer functions on emotion -- there is no evidence behind any of the rash claims. While I would dearly love to see all of Redmond quake under the shadow of Tux, it's clear that this ain't gonna happen any time soon. Anyone who thinks Linux is ready for the non-techie is dreaming. Memo to author: my Grandma still won't touch Linux.

I am sure any article critical of MS to you is deemed "idiotic". I am not saying they are going to be put out of business, but they certainly have proven they have ZERO strategy for combating free software.

The point is, an article about the future of a closed-source propietary software making company from a site dedicated to open-source is likely to be VERY bias and also likely to reach only one conclusion regarding their future. Thus, not taking anything to heart.

For all we know, all three of OSX, Windows, and Linux might be dead in time to give Grandma conniptions in trying to learn whatever comes next.

A side mark, your OS list contains 2 commercial OS's.
Linux is non commercial thus as long there are plenty volunteers who enjoy working with a free OS i don't see why suddenly linux would cease to exist.

So? People will move on to the next big thing, regardless of how invincible the current generation feels.

I did not say Linux would suddenly stop existing -- but it could very easily stop mattering. Computers running BE/OS, MS-DOS, and Amiga still technically exist, and there are still communities for them, after all, but when's the next time you expect to see them in use?

Windows and OSX aren't immune to this either. It's happened to freeware, it's happened to open-source software, it's happened to normal software. It will happen again.

Most Grandmas will be able to use Windows or Linux equally well. If they're like mine and only use a web browser/e-mail client. All it takes is an appropriately named icon on the desktop, and they're off.

Also, my mom used my computer while it was running GNOME or XFCE, and she said it did everything she needed it to (which was of course, just web browsing and such).

A pre-installed copy of Ubuntu/SLED/Fedora/CentOS/PCLinuxOS will be fine for many 'non-techies.'

Grandmas don't "touch" windows either. They perform a subset of tasks that are equally easy to do in linux and windows, provided that everything is setup properly.
Setup and maintenance are not trivial under windows.

Heck, it's baffling even to computer professionals. My mother has a dell vista PC that BSODs randomly, sometimes during boot. Updates breaks drivers unexpectedly, sound gratuitously stopping working and works again after uninstalling an obscure sound driver (there were two of them), etc.

Basically, f--k off with the grandma argument already, it's been beaten to death and windows is absolutely not easier to use and administrate than linux now.

And the rest (ie the subset of operation that grandma is able to perform) is equally easy.

Grandmas don't "touch" windows either. They perform a subset of tasks that are equally easy to do in linux and windows, provided that everything is setup properly.
Setup and maintenance are not trivial under windows.

Of course, you're right. But the qusetion is, when it comes to Linux, who's going to set it up for my grandma? Certainly not me. Not that I've got anything against Linux, but I don't use it, so don't know enough about it to provide tech support for those I care about.

My grandma and most of my family/friends will use Windows, because that's what I use. If I switched to Linux, they'd probably switch too. This means that you really need to appeal to power users like me, who have a lot of influence on what those around us use.

Right now, I've got 0 problems with Windows. No security issues and it runs smoother than a baby's ass. I use computers to get work done, so you gotta give me reasons (other than political) why I should take the time to switch from a platform that is working well for me, and try to find equivalents to the 40+ applications I use. That is a LOT of work, and I need a list of REAL, tangible benefits other than 'Bill Gates is a seal-clubbing bastard.'

Don't you think that, as a computing enthusiast, you should be familiar with more than one operating system?

I can troubleshoot/repair Windows, Linux and OS X computers (though I'm a little less familiar with the latter, it's still relatively easy to maintain). I see this diverse skill set as a great asset, as it allows me to easily go from one computing environment to another - and it's not nearly as much work as you claim it to be.

In any case, it's not a matter of "switching away" from Windows, but rather to add other OSes to your area of expertise. Heck, there's nothing preventing you from dual-booting, so you can get the best of both worlds.

Even if you won't touch Linux with a ten-foot pole, there's something to be said for setting up family/friends with Linux. *You* may know how to keep a Windows computer safe and running smoothly, but years of experience have shown me that non-technical users have an uncanny ability to screw up their Windows PC. Breaking a properly set Linux PC, however, is a lot harder, and remote repairs/updates through SSH make it *very* easy for the "family and friends tech support specialist."

Don't you think that, as a computing enthusiast, you should be familiar with more than one operating system?

Meh, I'm a power user, not a geek/enthusiast Power users tend to only take the time to learn things that have an obvious productivity gain behind them. Unlike geeks, we don't use computers because we are fascinated by them or because they're fun; we use them because they are tools that help us get work done. Nothing more, nothing less.

*You* may know how to keep a Windows computer safe and running smoothly, but years of experience have shown me that non-technical users have an uncanny ability to screw up their Windows PC.

I usually set people up with everything they need, including Firefox, free anti-virus, and a good firewall. Then I say to them "This is what you do, this is what you don't do. If you do any of the things I told you not to, I will not help you." So far, I haven't encountered any major problems.

It kind of makes one wonder why you'd come to this web site, since it is obviously aimed towards geeks and enthusiasts.

BTW, "Power User" and "Geek" aren't mutually exclusive. You can be both (in fact, most computer geeks are also power users by definition).

In any case, I wasn't talking to you in terms of you being a Power User, but rather a Family/Friend Tech Support. Those are usually more than just Power Users, since they often have to solve problems that fall outside of what they specifically need to know to be productive...

In any case, I tend to doubt that you're "only" a Power User. Power Users don't waste time advocating in favor of an OS (and against others) on Web Forums. I'm sorry, WorknMan, but I do believe that you're a geek/computer enthusiast, whether you care to admit it or not! :-)

BTW, "Power User" and "Geek" aren't mutually exclusive. You can be both (in fact, most computer geeks are also power users by definition).

While I agree a person can be both, I don't agree that most geeks are power users by definition. For example, a power user will sometimes download 30 different email programs, just to see which one has the most functionality, and will have no problems switching if they happen to find something that's better than what they're currently using. Geeks tend to be more particular and set in their ways about what they use, often choosing to use an app based on the software license rather than how functional it is. Just because you can hack a kernel or write your own Firefox extension does not a power user make. You also have to be really efficient with the tools you use.

In any case, I wasn't talking to you in terms of you being a Power User, but rather a Family/Friend Tech Support. Those are usually more than just Power Users, since they often have to solve problems that fall outside of what they specifically need to know to be productive...

True, but that's what Google is for The majority of the things I know, I learned while fixing machines, especially my own. For example, I've been using Win2k/XP since around 2001. But until a few weeks ago, I had no idea what the Recovery Console was. Why? Because I never had a need to know, until I had to repair a partition with a damanged file system that would not boot.

n any case, I tend to doubt that you're "only" a Power User. Power Users don't waste time advocating in favor of an OS (and against others) on Web Forums.

I am not a staunch supporter of one OS over another. I think they're all tools, good for different purposes. And I don't think that Linux/*BSD is the best OS choice for grandma. Assuming that nobody was around to help her, she's probably better off on OSX than Linux or Windows.
And yes, I guess I have a little 'geek' in me, as I like to install Linux and play around with it from time-to-time. But that only happens every once in awhile, and the urge to tinker doesn't last more than a few days, then I'm done for about a year

a power user will sometimes download 30 different email programs, just to see which one has the most functionality, and will have no problems switching if they happen to find something that's better than what they're currently using. Geeks tend to be more particular and set in their ways about what they use, often choosing to use an app based on the software license rather than how functional it is.

I don't really agree with this characterization, actually. Geeks *will* try new things, and frankly I don't know of anyone (except maybe RMS and a few true believers around him) that will use a program will less functionality just because of its license. I know the stereotype exists, but I just don't think it's as prevalent as people think.

Just because you can hack a kernel or write your own Firefox extension does not a power user make. You also have to be really efficient with the tools you use.

Well, I can't hack a kernel or write my own Firefox extension, and yet I do consider myself both a geek *and* a power user. Anyway, this is getting quite off-topic, so all I'll say is that the terms do overlap quite a bit. I think we can agree on that...

And I don't think that Linux/*BSD is the best OS choice for grandma. Assuming that nobody was around to help her, she's probably better off on OSX than Linux or Windows.

While OSX is in fact very intuitive, the fact is that you can have a pre-configured, grandma-friendly system based on Linux. Kiosk mode in particular is quite good for PHD PCs...

I disagree, I liked reading the article. It had some interesting analysis on Microsoft's moves changing the GPLv3. One wonders whether they meant that to happen?

Anways, Microsoft's monopoly will continue for a long time, I do agree with you. If they have to throw billions at it a year (which they have done, Google "EDGI"), they will do it, since they get billions from Windows/Office/everything else in return. Network effects.

MS is never going to go away, just look at IBM. MS has lots of cash on hand and patents. they also have a pretty wide array of products and software. I am sure MS will change some but go away? i doubt it.

I think in the end, it will balance out. ppl will use the OS that suits them. and in that end; MS will still probley be the largest player....

I believe that any future for Microsoft lies in an OSS Windows and Windows development studio and Proprietary Office, Money, MS Games for the PC, etc as future paid computer preloads. (I won't use the F/ of that particular initial set because even as a OSS company I think Microsoft will keep Windows and the development kits friendly to their Proprietary software heratige and continue to allow Closed Source development on them. Therefore they will NEVER be GNU style Free.)

Microsoft is a platform company. The old platform was Win32 and they controlled it. Now people want cross-platform, so Microsoft created the .net stack, and gently helped (i.e. didn't stop) it being ported to Linux.

Well that wasn't good enough. The web is now becoming a platform. Gee, what to do? Oh, create Silverlight.

Microsoft will always control the platform in that they will always control the final layer between the operating system and the hardware. No one cares what's on top, be it Word or Firefox or a server.

Microsoft is a platform company. The old platform was Win32 and they controlled it. Now people want cross-platform, so Microsoft created the .net stack, and gently helped (i.e. didn't stop) it being ported to Linux.

Problem is that .net was never supposed to encourage cross-platform development, they were just paying lip service to the promise and success of Java in the enterprise. They've ignored mono simply because neither they nor anybody else in the industry thinks it will actually impact their business.

.Net and all of Microsoft's other platform/media/service initiatives all revolve around keeping windows at the center of the computing universe.

XBox exists only to keep Sony or anybody else from establishing a foothold in people's living rooms on the cusp of the home digital media explosion, which is supposed to happen any day now if the analysts are to be believed.

Less successfully, Zune is about preventing Apple from exercising control of the digital media market and potentially rendering MS impotent. There's also their own IPTV business with the providers which, of course, ensures that Windows-based codecs remain the anchor for delivery of paid content.

WinMobile extends Windows control to mobile devices for no other tangible advantage other than ensuring users of these devices require a Windows infrastructure to anchor it to.

Even their Live! initiative misses the mark; where every other player involved in trying to figure out how to bridge the chasm from desktop to web-based services to provide anytime/anywhere platform agnostic access to applications and data, MS is simply trying to make the web an extension of Windows. Sure, utilize the web all you want, we just want to make sure you're using IE to do it, which means you're anchored to a, yes, Windows desktop.

Office is simply another extension of that strategy, and may arguably be Microsoft's crown jewel more so than Windows itself. Windows is the platform, but Office controls the information, hence the battle over standards. And as much as MS fights to keep Office entrenched in corporate markets, it ensures that Windows remains entrenched on corporate desktops.

Every single thing Microsoft does ultimately revolves around Windows remaining locked in it's comfortable dominant position. They will continue to lose billions on the media and web services divisions, in order to do so. Conversely, if those divisions were actually profitable, they'd still be contributing a minute amount of profit in comparison to the Windows/Office behemoth.

That, ultimately, will be their undoing. They have done a fantastic job of holding back the forces of change, but they won't be able to forever, and they run the risk of being left defenseless if the time comes that Windows loses relevance. Despite their size, they have a massive exposure in that they've hinged all of their business on the continued entrenchment of Windows. It's the business equivalent of a single-point-of-failure.

Well that wasn't good enough. The web is now becoming a platform. Gee, what to do? Oh, create Silverlight.

Well, here here, to that. People seemed to be too comfortable allowing Adobe to hold an entrenched position simply because it meant Microsoft couldn't. They're really not much better. The only reason they seem to be held in regard is because they throw a flash player to the linux community on a regular basis to ensure everyone can still watch YouTube.

If Silverlight is a truly open and unencumbered standard, which from what I've heard it seems to be, then that's a gift for the community, regardless of Microsofts unquestionable ulterior motives. I don't think anyone expects MS to start releasing linux players etc. in support of their own standards, but a simple commitment to avoid legal rhetoric for alternative implementations is gift enough.

Microsoft will always control the platform in that they will always control the final layer between the operating system and the hardware. No one cares what's on top, be it Word or Firefox or a server.

MS is concerned, only in that they don't want applications that run equally well on alternative platforms. They're not concerned about somebody creating a better platform than Windows, they're concerned about others reducing the barriers to migration if customers elect to use an alternative platform. And that, sadly, is the basis of Microsoft's whole Windows business strategy: "Don't use us because you want to, use us because you have to."

I don't consider myself to be one of the anti-MS brigade, although there is certainly much to criticize of Microsoft's business tactics. I don't think MS is evil, I simply think they're poorly managed (said as a non-shareholder, if I held stock in MSFT my opinon from that POV would probably differ). There is a ridiculous amount of talent, resources and capability at Microsoft, but my personal opinion is that they've allowed their market dominance to artifically restrain the state of technology in both personal and business computing. Economic business models dictate a cycle of new idea, realization, production, commodotization, saturation and back to new idea. Companies with an inordinant amount of control on the market tend to hold the cycle back at commoditization, which stunts the process of industry innovation. Doesn't prevent it, but it certainly impedes it. Windows in it's current form should have died a decade ago; it should have been replaced by something newer and different, whether from Microsoft or someone else. That's not bashing Windows, simply pointing out that it is very rare in the technology industry for a particular brand or technology to dominate for as long as Microsoft has.

Anyways, enough of my rant. Simply wanted to point out that Microsoft isn't trying to embrace new opportunities and platforms for growth, they're simply doing everything they can to protect the rich-client OS paradigm that is our Windows computing universe.

I hardly think Microsoft is going to disappear anytime soon, but they don't need to. If Windows were to lose as little as 10% marketshare in terms of install base, for instance, it would probably have a catastrophic impact on Microsoft's ability to control the market the way they do and without a different business strategy, that would spell the beginning of the end. Those profits, that bank account, and their very business model, are contingent on the status quo being maintained.

Microsoft will always control the platform in that they will always control the final layer between the operating system and the hardware. No one cares what's on top, be it Word or Firefox or a server.

The game's changed. The author should keep up.

I love sentences that start "Microsoft will always...", because they invariably come from people who can't see five minutes into the future. Microsoft is slowly losing control of the operating system, browser, and office market. It won't go away in any of those areas for the foreseeable, but it will be in the same position as everyone else - having to compete. I mean, look at Windows Live - it's a complete disaster. If Microsoft get into the Linux distro game, then we'll see if they can really compete on OS software or if the proprietary restrictions on Windows are the crutch I've always suspected them to be.

That the author of the article can't see Microsofts next move doesn't mean they don't have any.
I'm pretty sure a lot of people didn't see the SCO affair and patent deals coming. Perhaps they're also missing the next move from Microsoft?

Microsoft has a lot of well-paid, intelligent people that will try their best to make sure Microsoft will keep getting money for almost every PC sold.

well paid and intelligent you're right and they already proved it:
you site SCO with it's happy end..
but you forget the best of it:
VISTA a master 5-years-dev-piece!!
I hope they will continue to be well paid and SOOOOOOOO clever!

I think the article author fails to realise that if Microsoft stopped making money right now, they could coast for the next 50 years on reserves alone.

Microsoft are as strong as ever. If the free software proponents want Linux to increase worldwide usage, then they should be focusing on improving every aspect of the system instead of writing clueless articles about the downfall of Microsoft.

I think the article author fails to realise that if Microsoft stopped making money right now, they could coast for the next 50 years on reserves alone.

I think the comment author fails to realise that in the technology business, two to four years of not keeping up can be fatal. When Digital was swallowed up by Compaq, it was the biggest corporate buyout in history - and now only people like those who read this site know it ever existed. Obviously that won't happen with Microsoft, but for them, oblivion is only another Vista-like failure or two away.

Microsoft are as strong as ever. If the free software proponents want Linux to increase worldwide usage, then they should be focusing on improving every aspect of the system instead of writing clueless articles about the downfall of Microsoft.

Linux is as strong as ever. If Microsoft proponents want Microsoft to keep up, they should be focussing on getting Microsoft to listen to the customer again instead of writing clueless comments about the invincibility of Microsoft.

Microsoft are becoming like Apple - Profitably dying for decades!

Since when is Apple dying? They nearly died, I'll give you that - but Jobs, OS X, and the iPod made sure they'll be around for quite a while yet.

There are more solutions in the market with free software than there have ever been too, and more are coming.

Linux is already doing great in the server arena, in database, file server, web server applications. It has totally stormed into High Performance Computing: most of the top 100 fastest computers in the world run Linux (and few, if any, run Windows).

Intel's MIDs will run Linux; Windows is too resource greedy and Windows CE sucks for all but the simplest applications. Asus new superinexpensive computers will also run Linux, for the same reasons, and also because Windows is too expensive for such an inexpensive machine. The OLPC will hopefully put millions of computers running Linux in the hands of children all over the world. If not, maybe Intel will with its new cheap laptop computers.

So, it cannot be said that Linux is not growing in the mobile desktop arena.

Motorola is putting Linux inside its newer smartphones, featurephones and even cheap-phones. Palm Treos will soon run Linux too. Nokia is wetting its toes in this area with its web pads. In the far east, Linux is taking the smartphone market by storm. Telephone switches have often been running Carrier Grade Linux for some time now.

Linux is definitely growing VERY fast at all levels of the telephony and communications market.

Sony, LG, Tivo, Philips and many others are putting Linux into all kind of consumer electronic devices, where Microsoft is conspicuously absent. In the embedded industrial market, it is displacing all other operating systems (though Microsoft is doing OK there too -- just not as well).

Linux is achieving critical mass, and its growth is ever faster, locked in a virtuous cycle as it piles up improvements coming its contributors in all of its application markets. OK, it might never conquer the Western Desktop Space, although it will surely gain a lot more share than it currently has. But the world is much larger and diverse than western desktops.

As for Microsoft, sure, they will most likely continue making lots of money. Some of their products are really good, some are good enough, and some are just pulled by Microsoft's titanic traction. But I think it is clear they will have to accomodate a growing competitor in their home turf, and I looks like they will be locked out of immense emerging markets.

By the way, that little thing you do, repeating the "Mr. Writer" bit sure is cunning!

It is interesting that you posted those numbers. BECAUSE that is the truth of the matter. Look at RedHat a decade later and look at its income stream. PEANUTS! The problem that Open Source people have, and why Open Source will not dominate is because they fail to look at the bottom line.

As much as it costs to get Microsoft, it creates an ecosystem where you can earn money. I know I have tried countless times to make my money with stuff like Open Source, Java, etc. In the end I always end up with Microsoft and making money. At this point and 15 years later I have decided that yes I like Open Source and will use it, but Windows is here to stay whether I like it or not. Heck Windows is not even THAT bad...

I never ever heard this before!!! MS is going to disappear? They're too big to respond to new threats! Must be the Year of Linux(tm)!

Come on, please, this same thing was predicted last year, the year before, 2000, and in 1997 (anybody remember netscape?) I for one don't care what if MS disappears or not, but come on, this is one old joke. Call me when it MS shows some real losses, not year over year profits and a fanboys fantasy.

That's a good point. Microsoft may have a huge cash reserve, but apart from Windows and Office, they are not very profitable. MSN isn't making money, the Zune isn't making money, Xbox is barely breaking even due to the losses they're taking on every console unit.

I don't think MS is going anywhere anytime soon, but their dominance is certainly at risk (which is only natural, after all - all empires fall, eventually).

Tsk tsk. If you can't make an argument without throwing insults around, then perhaps your time would be better spent elsewhere.

I perfectly understand how profitable these two divisions are. In fact, the majority of Microsoft's income comes from these two divisions - which is why Microsoft is on a relatively shaky ground, since any challenges to those two products would severely affect the company's revenue stream.

They could not, however, run a thousand loss-making Xbox divisions on them. Consider that MS loses about 125$ on each Xbox 360 sold. As of now, it has sold about 10 million Xbox 360s. That is a net loss of 1.25 billion dollars in about 20 months, or 750 million dollars per year.

Considering that MS has an net income of 12 billion dollars for 2006, one could therefore calculate that it would only take 16 Xbox divisions to bankrupt the company, not 1,000 as you suggested. (Well, not quite: they still have a 29G$ cash reserve, down from 49G$ just a few years ago...they can still afford a few more money-losing divisions with that, though nowhere near a 1000x the Xbox360 division).

Normally I'd let go of this kind of exaggeration, but considering that you chose to go for ad hominem attacks instead of trying to engage in a rational debate, I have to say that this was a pretty stupid statement on your part.

Microsoft is obviously not going anywhere soon, and is not headed for bankruptcy.

For sure, Microsoft is facing problems in important areas.

Firstly, some of their cashcows will eventually be heading into maturity, meaning less growth and more competition. Not competition in the sense that they will lose a lot of marketshare, but more in the sense, that they will have to fight a much harder and much more expensive battle to retain their markets.

Secondly the will have to manage the challenges of desktop applications migrating to the web, and software becoming more and more services (there are some opportunities in this area for them too). Desktop applications moved to the web could seriously undermine the value of their desktop monopoly

Microsoft will not lose to competitors as much as to different ways of doing computing.

In the beginning, there was Office. Microsoft put an office suite on every desk as PCs swept the corporate world. Office ran on Windows. Then came Exchange. Microsoft reinvented office communication as networking became more common. Microsoft dominated the corporate market.

Windows became important as the PC invaded the home. The consumer desktop was modeled as a jukebox for applications with Windows as the access point. The profit center shifted from Office to Windows as Microsoft controlled the gateway to the library of consumer applications.

Now media has become more important than applications, and the Web has become the gateway to the library of media. This includes both entertainment and information media, which have diverging business models. The former is based on licensing fees, while the latter is fueled by the advertising industry. Apple and Google have established leadership in these markets.

Microsoft has had problems making inroads in these areas, and neither Apple nor Google depend on Windows in any significant way. Microsoft continues to sell Windows to the vast majority of consumers that primarily use their computers to access Apple and Google services. But Windows is no longer a crucial gateway for the consumer desktop. Windows is now marketed as a product with premium value in and of itself. If it doesn't provide the Wow, then what's the point?

While Microsoft struggles with the media-centric consumer desktop, things are humming along nicely in the corporate world. No radical shifts are happening, which is good for Microsoft. It's expensive for a business to migrate away from Microsoft. But as Linux matures, the lower-cost options become more compelling. Ultimately, Microsoft will have to price their products much closer to commercial Linux vendors in order to hold on to the corporate market.

In both the corporate and consumer markets, Microsoft is increasingly unable to secure their dominance and technical leadership. But as the incumbent, they are in no particular danger of a mass exodus. It will be an slow decline over the next 10-15 years. The less they fight the inevitable by changing their strategy, the longer they will retain their business.

I think your idea of Internet Rental word processors and
spreadsheets is more wishful thinking.

The reason pay TV on small satalite dish and cable which I assume is your model for internet based rental software
made it was that there was the compelling reason for people to buy into it such as over a hundred specialty channels rather than three networks and a few local channels of lowest common denominator material under the old over the air "free" TV system.

People are just not going to pay ever increasing monthly satalite/cable TV style rates to use the same types of proprietary software from some server in some other state or even COUNTRY that they are using for a one time single computer unlimited use licensing fee if they don't "upgrade" now.

Companies from Sun Microsystems to Microsoft itself tried this Internet Rental software gimic (It was the ORIGINAL purpose of Sun Microsystems' Java platform and programming language and "Network Computer "concept, and Microsoft's .NET system) and failed at it.

Sun wound up turning into an OSS company (and premere big business supporter of the GPLv3) when this Internet Rental software system failed for them and the same is going to happen to Microsoft

The article looks more like a death wish than fact-based reality.I think when people hear and see Microsoft they just think of Windows.Look at the X-Box for example.Its doing much better than expected.

I dont think Microsoft is going anywhere soon.They have the intellectual resources and capital to take the company in any direction they choose.Even if it comes to them just remaining a small core unit and maximize profit by outsourcing everything else.

Two words probably make Microsoft break out in cold sweats and neither is Linux, imho. One is "Google", an outfit with huge financial clout and expertise that threatens some of Microsoft's core activities. The other word is "Apple", not a threat financially but an outfit that captures all the consumer cool and brand appeal that Microsoft may long to have and somehow always misses by a mile, with the result that breaking out of the "pure PC" market and into consumer electronics generally is that much harder for them.

Even if Microsoft made every mistake in the book in the next few years and lost a lot of market share, they would still be left, with say, 70 per cent rather than 90 per cent plus of the market. They'd still be a de facto monopoly, they'd still make billions of dollars, and they'd still produce some excellent solutions because some - even if far from all - of their stuff is very good whatever the critics may say. Microsoft is simply not about to vanish any time soon.

The best thing Linux can do, imho, is stick to what Linux does best. It's doing fine. No need to worry about the next guy. Look on his being worried about you as flattery.

I should start by saying that I didn't read the article. I prefer not to read articles with titles like this. I also tend to avoid articles with titles like:

"Why X will Never/Always Lose/Win"

It's almost guaranteed to be recycled, opinionated, tripe with only a tenous basis in fact. Or perhaps very likely to happen some time but not anytime soon.

So, I won't talk about the article proper, but make a general observation.

Butters said, yesterday, that Microsoft had won the XML document standard war by being just open enough, and mentioned that he was as disappointed as anyone else about that.

And I got to thinking about how a "defeat" can actually be a victory... just not as big a victory as one might have wanted.

Take the OOXML/OpenDocument thing. In the absence of pressure from OpenDocument, MS would have come out with another totally opaque standard. Now, say what you will about OOXML, which is indeed horrible, we have forced Microsoft's hand, and they have had to open up a little more than they would have otherwise.

To me, that's a victory, of sorts.

This is why I tend to discount arguments that people make about whether Entity X or Entity Y, say Intel or AMD, is "winning" which are based upon numbers like marketshare.

If AMD had 1/10th the sales as Intel, but still forced Intel to adopt their (AMD's) 64 bit command set, that's a victory.

We so often view success in terms of coming out on top, when it would behoove us to consider that once we've forced our competitor to do something that he didn't want to have to do, we've made progress. And in a sense, even "won", even if we usually forego the ticker-tape parade.

It is always amusing reading comments about Microsoft demise as their server market share continues to rise. I always also hear the demise of the Windows desktop and wonder how is anyone going to displace Windows when both new desktops and new notebooks have become so cheap and they come with Windows. I constantly hear of Linux replacing Windows but the simple truth is that Linux dominates a different market than Windows. Windows is the "business" OS while Linux is the "computer science" OS. So while you will get more and more rendering farms, computer clusters, earth simulators, etc. using Linux, there is very little incentive for business to move their directory services, databases, groupware software, applications, print servers, etc. to Linux. Windows does these jobs very well and is even cheaper than enterprise Linux.

1- PC users like Windows. Not just Windows, but Windows applications too. I tried to move some people who didn't want to pay for a copy of Windows, Office, etc to Linux up to rencently. It failed for several reasons:

a) No feeling of control over the sytem. Where are my files? my folders? Where's C:? A:? I couldn't get them to understand the principle of a Unix fs.

b) Lack of 'true' applications. Where's mIRC? MSN? AIM? Winamp? iTune? Outlook? MS Office? etc etc. I couldn't get them to use alternatives. The only free software that non-techies like is Firefox honestly (ok, there is Filezilla, eMule, etc but these run on Windows only). I do undestand them however. Xchat and Konversation are no good compared to mIRC. MSN/AIM have much more features than Gaim/Kopete and everything *works* you know what I mean. There's nothing like Winamp on Linux except maybe Amarok, but for non-techies, forget it. iTunes? No replacement. Outlook? Well, there's Thunderbird that is WAY better than Outlook but people insist on using Outlook. Oh, and OpenOffice. Try getting a non-techie to use it. Good luck. It took them years to learn how to use MS Office.

c) Software compatibility (ActiveX,WMP,Quiktime,etc)

d) Devices compatibility (over and over again)

e) Bugs (yes, there are still many bugs in Gnome/KDE)

f) etc.

2- If you eliminate Linux from the equation, there's still Steve and his Mac/iPod/etc. Yes, they are hurting Microsoft. However, they are not really competing with them. The Mac is not a development platform. They have no such thing like .NET. Apple doesn't even have its place on the web. No news sites (like MSNBC), no mail (like Hotmail), no IM service (Mac users use MSN), etc. They don't even have their own Office suite. If Apple wants to get big, they need those. Right now, they have an OS and few gadgets. I don't mean it's not ok, but they are not competing with Microsoft.

3- Games & Business applications. DirectX is a big market. Hardware vendors make alot of money with Microsoft. It's such a big business: the game industry. People often forget that. And there are business applications, all written for Windows because only Windows can attract most developers with its development suite, SDKs and millions of books written about it. Seriously, most organizations are tied to Windows. How can others compete with Microsoft?

Right now, I think Google is hurting. Apple is also hurting them too with OSX and the iPod but not much. Just like Sun & Java in the past.

I'm sorry, but this all reads like a load of BS. I don't think you really tried to convince anyone to move to Linux, and if even if you had, you are so clearly biased against Linux and the apps available for it that you would have turned them off.

Amarok not good for non-techies? What the heck are you smoking? It is, by far, the single best music player out there - in fact, as soon as it's available on Windows I'm going to install it on my work PC.

The rest of your rant is just repeating the same outdated FUD we hear every so often from anti-Linux posters (I don't have any issues reading Quicktime/WMP files on Linux - in fact, I can read *all* media with a single app, including streaming realplayer, Quicktime movies, etc.).

I'm sorry, but this all reads like a load of BS. I don't think you really tried to convince anyone to move to Linux, and if even if you had, you are so clearly biased against Linux and the apps available for it that you would have turned them off.

Amarok not good for non-techies? What the heck are you smoking? It is, by far, the single best music player out there - in fact, as soon as it's available on Windows I'm going to install it on my work PC.

The rest of your rant is just repeating the same outdated FUD we hear every so often from anti-Linux posters (I don't have any issues reading Quicktime/WMP files on Linux - in fact, I can read *all* media with a single app, including streaming realplayer, Quicktime movies, etc.).

Enought with the Microsoft cheerleading already...

It's people like you that make it impossible for Linux to go mainstream. Instead of acknowledging the issue, you dismiss it. Honestly, you're completely wrong. Obviously, you haven't made people move from Windows to Linux. You hate Microsoft and that's it.

Linux is a good OS (let's call the whole bundle "Linux"). It does some things really well. It's secure. It's free. It got better desktop compositing than Windows (well, I'm not talking about stability, just eye candy).

However, it lacks good software that normal people do use. Yes, I agree, Eclipse is a nice IDE. LaTeX makes writing easier when you get used to it. Unfortunately, the list of benefits is quite short.

Do not tell the average joe that Amarok owns Winamp and iTunes. In fact, it's not even true. Winamp owns Amarok. Foobar owns Amarok. Dude, AOL bought Winamp for $$80 millions USD. It must not be that bad.

Chat. mIRC > *. Tons of kids learned programming with mIRC scripting. There are hundreds of sites dedicated to it. The client is perfect and damn fast. mIRC makes the IRC experience complete. Seriously, you know how much scripts exist for it? I'm sure there are more mIRC scripts than FOSS applications. On Linux, you have to tell these kids to use xchat or irssi (or some other less popular clients). Xchat does only the minimum. You can barely customize it. Xchat is not 1/10 of what mIRC is. Run both side by side. You will see.

Same applies to IM. Take for example MS Live Messenger. This is what kids wanna use. It includes all the goodies Microsoft want them to use. When using Gaim or aMSN, you get the minimum again.

P2P. 8 years later, and there is still no client on Linux that match Napster in term of usability. There was Kazaa too, eMule/eDonkey, etc. Sure, there are some Linux P2P clients that work ok. But damn, most of them are not actively developped and are hard to get up and running. You can't simply download them and click go! The ones based on giFT require some tweaking that require way too much knowledges.

Luckily, they are porting Filezilla to Linux. The only viable client was the old and unmaintened gFTP. 10 years ago, Windows had better ftp clients than gFTP. That's not a joke. Download managers on Linux are just bad frontends to wget, curl. No Getright, FlashGet, FDM, etc.

Archiving utilities. Still nothing like WinRAR, 7zip, Winzip, etc. Yes, there are good archiving utilities, right. But you must use the command line for more complicated things.

And there are the big players: Photoshop, Flash, Visual Studio, etc. I know it's sad but you can't replace those unless you clone them like OpenOffice did and it still won't be right. Compare those to Elvis and the Beatles.

Obviously, going mainstream is not easy. I think it's impossible to catch up with Microsoft anyway. However, you can take a part of the market if you do one or two things perfecly. And that's what Apple did! I don't know what Linux can do, it's not easy to answer. But there's a place for it.

Archive: Nothing comes close to WinRAR - nothing. It is such a polished and honed piece of software. I've not found a single free piece of software for archive management on Mac that comes even close to WinRAR, let alone WinZIP on windows. There seems to be a million zip droplets, but no actual programs to view and manage the contents of an archive without unpacking it.

IM: Almost nothing supports webcam on MSN (not even MSN:Mac), and even less support voice. Whilst Adium > *, I'm left with using the atrocious Mercury every time I want to use my webcam.

However, let's not be negative; there's plenty of apps on Mac that nothing on Windows even comes close to, as I'm sure it is on Linux too.

Adium flat out owns Pidgin and the rest. The polish, stability, and customisations rock.

OmniOutliner and OmniFocus are things of beauty

There is no equal to TextMate on any platform, anywhere. There may be TextMate clones, but the community, intense level of detail & integration with the shell can only be found in TextMate.

Adium flat out owns Pidgin and the rest. The polish, stability, and customisations rock.

OmniOutliner and OmniFoucs are things of beauty

There is no equal to TextMate on any platform, anywhere. There may be TextMate clones, but the community, intense level of detail & integration with the shell can only be found in TextMate.

I think applications can be pretty subjective and depending on the platform you use your choices may be dictated due to what is or is not available.

On Windows I'd say the big bad boy editor is UltraEdit. That dosen't mean its the best editor on the mac or linux.

I do agree that there is a list of commercial applications that need to be available on any platform for the 'majority' of users to take that platform seriously, I just tend to think of them more in terms of office apps, Adobe software and the other major vendors.

It's people like you that make it impossible for Linux to go mainstream. Instead of acknowledging the issue, you dismiss it.

What the heck are you talking about? I'm not refusing to acknowledge issues, I'm disagreeing with what the previous message said. Is that forbidden now?

Honestly, you're completely wrong.

No, I'm not. In fact, I was completely right.

Obviously, you haven't made people move from Windows to Linux.

Actually, I have. Two in the past two months. They're quite happy, too, even though one has kept Windows on dual boot just in case.

You hate Microsoft and that's it.

I don't, and I don't know where you saw that. I have a Xbox, I have actually worked on two games for it, and I plan on buying an Xbox360. I still regularly use MS Office at home, though I am increasingly using OO.o.

It seems it's *you* who is completely wrong.

It got better desktop compositing than Windows (well, I'm not talking about stability, just eye candy).

The new release of compiz-fusion is very stable.

However, it lacks good software that normal people do use. Yes, I agree, Eclipse is a nice IDE.

You just completely undermined your credibility with that sentence. Hint: normal people don't *know* what an IDE is.

Do not tell the average joe that Amarok owns Winamp and iTunes. In fact, it's not even true. Winamp owns Amarok. Foobar owns Amarok. Dude, AOL bought Winamp for $$80 millions USD. It must not be that bad.

I personally think that Amarok is a much superior player than Winamp - doesn't matter how much AOL paid for it, that doesn't prove anything.

But perhaps you can tell me how Winamp is superior to Amarok? I mean, you use both regularly, right? Because I do (Amarok at home, and Winamp at work.) So please, enlighten us with your wisdom.

Same applies to IM.

When I use Kopete, I can keep track of my friends using MSN, GoogleTalk, Yahoo Chat!, AOL and ICQ (okay, no one uses ICQ anymore, but you get the picture). Can I do that with MSN Messenger?

P2P. 8 years later, and there is still no client on Linux that match Napster in term of usability. There was Kazaa too, eMule/eDonkey, etc.

I guess you've been living in a cave for the past two years, and haven't realized that BitTorrent is now king of the hill.

The only viable client was the old and unmaintened gFTP. 10 years ago, Windows had better ftp clients than gFTP.

Konqueror. 'nuff said.

Archiving utilities. Still nothing like WinRAR, 7zip, Winzip, etc.

You're kidding, right? Hey, everyone, he's kidding, right?

In Konqueror, right click on an archive file, choose "Extract Here" or "Extract to...".

Select a bunch of files, then right-click on them. Choose the "Compress" submenu to automatically archive the files in a format of your choice. Simple as can be.

Oh, and RAR sucks balls.

Compare those to Elvis and the Beatles.

That doesn't even make sense.

In any case, you missed the point, which was that a pre-configured Linux PC can be *very* friendly for non-techies. I've seen it with my own eyes, many times. Now, which should I believe: my own eyes, or some outdated, inaccurate ramblings from a random Internet poster? Hmmm...tough choice...

I'm sorry but no easy to use P2P?
(Never mind that bittorent has largely replaced that
and gives beter results for many things).

Ever heard Of Frostwire or Limewire? They install
quickly and easily in my Fedora Linux.
They are as simply to use as their windows versions.
Then there is emule which is similar to its windows
counterpart. And all ARE actively being developed.
There are also easy to use bittorent clients too - don't forget Opera has torrent built-in.

Let's see about Amarok..well I'm not a fan of it but what about Rhythmbox, Juk, Banshee.. all work well
ande are actively developed. I'm sorry but for FREE
music jukboxes Linux EASILY gives more choice than windows or MAC. In windows the best you will get is Shareware or 30 day trial nagware.
This is one reason,a s a music enthusiast, I prefer
linux. Itunes is OK but nowhere near as flexible as
those other apps.

OK now to zip formats like rar and 7up. Are you serious? Linux has tools, some graphical, to deal with those. In my Fedora most of the unpacking of archives is handled transparently. And if you think ANY graphical tool can match the power of the command line you might want to think about why microsoft developed monad.

For BIG applications like Photoshop you have more of an argument though gimp and others are catching up and are probably sufficient for non-professionals. But the
rest of your arguments haven't been valid for at least
5 years.

I think that important selling point for Microsoft is Internet Explorer. A little effort is required to centraly administer IE via Microsoft Group Policy. Window admins love Group Policy, users not that much.

There are some projects to make Group Policy easy for Firefox, I've heard.....

I think you forgot some Apple solutions, they do have an email system (@mac.com), although not free, part of dot mac (.mac) which also includes a personal web hosting service, an online disk storage service (iDisk), a personal back-up solution that allows users to archive data to their iDisk, CD or DVD, an online greeting card service (iCards), a website review service (iReview), Safari bookmarks backup and sync, calendar (iCal) sync, among other services (most of them compatible with MS Windows as well).

They also have an IM service called iChat which uses AOL/AIM protocol, ICQ protocol, Jabber (allowing to connect to Google Talk, MSN and others) and Bonjour which allows for LAN communication.

They do have an office suite called iWork which includes Pages (word processor) and Keynote (slideshow application). Next version of iWork will also include a spreadsheet application (to be called Charts). They also have the old AppleWorks which was one of the first office suites for personal computers (based on the superb ClarisWorks, launched in 1984!) including word processing, spreadsheet, database, drawing, painting and presentation apps.

I'm not really sure what do you mean by "Apple doesn't even have its place on the web" (you have the official website, localized websites, iTunes Store, public discussion boards, online services (.Mac), software downloads, etc.) and I don't know why would Apple want to have a news channel like MSNBC (Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO, is a member of the Board of Directors of Apple so you can just use Google's information services like Google News, Google Stocks, etc.).

There is a lot more from Apple than just the Mac, OSX and the iPod. You also have Apple's professional line of displays, .Mac online services, Airport wireless solutions, Apple TV, Apple software (iLife, iWork, Logic Pro, Soundtrack Pro, Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio, etc), line of peripherals (Mighty Mouse, keyboards, iSight, speakers, etc.), line of servers (Xserve) and of course their new Smartphone (iPhone).

I do not believe that Linux is going to storm the market anytime soon...if ever, or that Microsoft won't be making Billions year in, year out. Its a flame bait article at best. It could have been a better article it actually makes some strong points.

I think it misses out on a few main topics.
* The Desktop analogy is mature. Vista has shown us Microsoft has *nowhere to go* with its OS.
* The space between you applications and your hardware is not as important as the gap between your applications and the web 2.0
* Microsoft is not OS company anymore, its about content delivery company, and has been moving in that direction for a long time.

"The Desktop analogy is mature. Vista has shown us Microsoft has *nowhere to go* with its OS."

Technically, maybe...that's neither here nor there in the scope of this article though. But, financially? MS is laughing themselves all the way to the bank with Vista in tow...they've already broken sales records over XP and are set to break even more.

"Microsoft is not OS company anymore, its about content delivery company, and has been moving in that direction for a long time."

I'm not saying you're wrong or right with that assertion, I would however like to hear your reasoning as to why you think that's true when something like 90% of their revenues are from software sales. Their only 'content delivery' device is the XBox, and they are barely breaking even on that.

It is in the scope of the article. I just think the article doesn't say everything. Microsoft has a *company* is far from dead, its days have actually gone when it was a leading desktop OS. Have they broken sales records!? You can only argue that they have broken revenue records. In fact the figure that counts *percentage install base* is elusive. I suspect very strongly thats its at its all time lowest since the launch of 95.

Other than amongst those who know about computers, Vista contains *nothing*, but a very pretty face...and it is pretty. It contains the magic ingredient DRM. Microsoft couldn't care less about the ipod, but itunes gives them nightmares. Look at the BBC a government run Monopoly. It chose Microsoft DRM, Look at tht work they have done with codec. Look how they are trying to derail the hi-def war, Look at the Zune; Xbox; Windows Media Player; Windows Media Center. Thats without all the phones etc that Microsoft wants.

Not for everybody. For some people it's always been easy to use, even before KDE and Gnome. For other, it's far from being easy to use.

OpenOffice.org is good but it doesn't display .doc documents exactly the same way as Word, so people still buy MS Office.

So it's a chicken and egg dilema. Linux and OpenOffice.org have been around for a decade or so, and they're gaining ground very slowly. I'm not worried for Microsoft's future. Companies prefer buying software from a well-established company that is the standard and that they trust. They're not necessarily right but this is how bosses think.

For some people it's always been easy to use, ... For other, it's far from being easy to use.

Now that I've been using predominantly GNU/Linux for a few years (though I'm using NetBSD right now), I find if very frustrating to go back to Windows. Windows isn't easy for me to use because I don't use it.

The author's point that

Linux became easy to use

is no doubt meant in the context of a fair and unbiased comparison. And he's right.

Oh please. Word doesn't display documents "exactly" as Word. WYSIWYG document editing has always been such a crap shoot that at this point consumers know better than to think what they see is what will really print.
And even if the post script (or whatever similar language is used) is exactly like the document view that says little about what your cheap printer will generate.

AFAICT, people don't use Open Office for three reasons:
1. They use Office and its advanced features (they're getting $300 worth out of Office).
2. They don't know what Open Office is.
3. They've heard of OOo, but fear anything they don't have to buy because AOL, and the other ad supported crap, have burned them out on ($$) free software.

Yes, OOo is tough on the RAM: Not that most Office users know how to check memory usage. And it's a bit slow, not that many of them would mind the short break while it loads in the morning. But from my experience, it's now a very nice document editor to use.

Although I never liked the practices Microsoft followed to guarantee its monopoly, I have to disagree with this article. Why? Well simply put, the future of computing is not in the next Operating system but in the next usability interface. People are tired of clicking, double clicking and having to use extensions like the mouse to do their job.

I don't really buy this surface computing thing, but why doesn't Linux usefully exploit my TabletPC? That's been out for more than 3 years.

I think the answer to this is that this kind of software is hard and doing image and stroke recognition is not something that average young developers are going to be experienced in. The Windows Mobile Devices team has a cadre really talented people who are paid to focus all of their ener, so it makes sense that they can do all this stuff and drive changes in the rest of the OS to get alternate input devices integrated. The Free Destkop has finally over the last 5 years gotten copy and paste integrated... will it be able to handle styluses, multi-touch, voice recognition, and other means of interfacing? I'm not talking about research prototypes and individual apps, but rather across-the-board integration.

People are tired of clicking, double clicking and having to use extensions like the mouse to do their job.

Actually, they're not. Most people are quite comfortable with the desktop metaphor, and any effort to move away from this is going to be a hard sell.

I'm not saying that Surface isn't cool, but I'm not convinced it's going to be the revolution some people make it out to be. I mean, look at voice command...how many times has this been touted as the "next step in computing"? The problem is that people don't really feel like talking to their computers. Can you imagine how silly that would look in an Internet Cafe?

There's a reason why the current paradigm is hard to displace: it works, and people are used to it. Don't underestimate User Inertia - after all, that is the main reason why people are still using Windows in the first place...

Actually, they're not. Most people are quite comfortable with the desktop metaphor, and any effort to move away from this is going to be a hard sell.

Most people seem quite comfortable because they have no other choice. Heck most of them don't know the difference between Windows version and the brand of computer they own...

I'm not saying that Surface isn't cool, but I'm not convinced it's going to be the revolution some people make it out to be. I mean, look at voice command...how many times has this been touted as the "next step in computing"? The problem is that people don't really feel like talking to their computers. Can you imagine how silly that would look in an Internet Cafe?

Gestures is not something new in the Operating systems. However it is something new when the entire interface is based on gestures. Also voice command is 1000 times more complex than gestures. Look at Wii with the gesture interface. It just works.

There's a reason why the current paradigm is hard to displace: it works, and people are used to it. Don't underestimate User Inertia - after all, that is the main reason why people are still using Windows in the first place...

User inertia has been holding for 20 years now. Microsoft is a monopoly based on that inertia. However a change is at hand, mostly because of the power given by new hardware and the need for Microsoft to move to something innovative before someone beats them at their own game. Because Linux is getting closer.

However no one can copy years of research in a few months to get Linux running on Surface. Imagine the changes in API. Microsoft has that ready for launch this year!!!

I am afraid that Microsoft will hold on to the market, loosing a small share, but there is no way it is going down any time soon. And the article speculated just that.

The writer assumes that companies don't adapt to change in free market situations. Even if OSS is "free" and MS can't use it, that doesn't mean that MS can't remain competitive. If they wanted to, they could totally reinvent themselves - and I am sure MS has many-o-plans to do such a thing. They will implement their changes when the time is right for them and not a moment sooner.

In the future, OSS will be a play, but it surely won't the last man standing because there can not be just one in a free marketplace.

In the future, OSS will be a play, but it surely won't the last man standing because there can not be just one in a free marketplace.

You are very correct that there can't be just one supplier in a free marketplace. But oss (actually F/OSS) isn't just one man.

Sun has seen the light and made Solaris open and there are several distributions of it being developed. And the GNU/Linux and BSD camps have been competitors from the start. And of course, even within GNU/Linux there are literally hundreds of competing distributions of which more than a couple are serious, for-profit endeavors.

No, we don't really need Microsoft in order to maintain a free marketplace, though like most commentators here, I doubt they're going to disappear anytime soon.

Yes, it's true to some degree. I think it's even hard for techies at times, that's why not more and more people are adapting Linux. If it'd be more like OSX, so everything is pre-configured and pre-installed, users would adapt to Linux. I don't ever want to recompile the kernel or freak around with my settings or the terminal - just as on OSX. I want to have the option as a poweruser, cause the terminal rocks, but if you're going for 'the rest of us', better don't support people by telling them unix commands that they have to put into the Terminal and figure out attrs and flags on their own.

Linux is getting there. Ubuntu is developing nicely and I can't wait to see where Linux is 5 years from now. All the other major distros do as well.

That being said, I installed SUSE Enterprise Linux on my mothers Laptop and she loves it. She plays the games that come with it, surfs the web, checks her Mail and so on. She also got a Mac Mini, that's her new favourite now, but before that, she really liked SUSE much, much more than Windows. She's a 58 year old woman who never had anything to do with computers.

So saying that it's just for techies isn't completely true, but I'd strongly advice everyone who's using Linux as a 'standard OS' to have a technie on their side whenever they run into problems.

Well there is one thing Microsoft could do, and I know this is a little out there and crazy to suggest. But, they could you know, make a decent operating system. I bet a stable, fast, secure and modern operating system would do wonders, instead of the polished but still broken excuse that Vista is. Oh wait, they have Flip3D! And UAC! So glad we waited five years for that.

Most `Grandmas` are on Social Security and have to chose between eating and paying for medicines. They are not, with rare exception, surfing the net on a new computer with Vista.

More-often-than-not they are using OS X on a Mac. I do happen to know several who are using Linux on an older computer. One of them had grand kids that would come over and surf porn. Windows XP would lock down the computer with all kinds of nice little goodies.

Since I loaded Ubuntu onto these machines and showed them how to get around in it they've absolutely loved it. Their grand kids probably hate me now. Who cares. Grandma's happy.

First of all, MS lives off office, which OOo is years behind. MSOffice will still be THE standard for most likely the upcoming decade. That being said, Office is really a product based on Windows, and I doubt this will change anytime soon.

Second of all, the "Linux threat" is really not a threat. No matter if 100, 1000 or 10 000 articles keep writing Linux is ready, Linux is an alternative, it doesn't change the fact that looking at MLs and forums, all these huge problems which force you to CLI is still there.

MS will continue to grow, moneywise at least. However, market share might shrink!

They are not dead. They are just flamed out after years of being "forced" to mimic innovation, thanks to competition. If they were the only player, we would all be still using DOS/Windows 3.11.

Nah, they are not dead. Just don't know what to do, due to poor leadership, steering the what once was a wonderful company into the corner by not seeing the future/competition. Then, tell me, why are they always late to the game? They always take the last train and try to take over the steam engine?

They don't know how to innovate, only copy, like trying to build a swiss army knife that does everything, but not really knowing each component by heart.

I can hear Balmer say after hearing of something new, "ya ya ya ya ya, we can do that, too". Oh please.....

Almost like a dog sniffing another dog's rear end to smell what the other dog ate that was so good.

Almost like a dog sniffing another dog's rear end to smell what the other dog ate that was so good.

Wow. That is the best explanation of how MS does business I have ever heard. Succinct, accurate.

Maybe if I had been around (in the in-the-market-for-an-IBM-compatible sense) in this, to me almost mythical, "Microsoft a wonderful company" era, I wouldn't be so hostile. Because (to expand on your simile, if I may), their rear-end is now so huge, once you get behind it you can't smell anything but dog-do for miles.

I don't think Microsoft is going to lose it's current customers anytime soon, but there's a market out there of 3 billion potential computer users who won't be able to afford Windows anytime soon, and have no preference in applications built up over the years. This is the market open source should really go after.

MS makes tons of cash, but that's just because Windows and Office has basically given them a license to print money. But Vista has shown that just because you're the richest corporation in the world, you can't necessarily build an OS that reflects that. Vista's not terrible, but does it really reflect the money and time MS poured into it? No way.

MS will be around, but their grip on the industry is disappearing. Growthwise, their company is backed up against a brick wall made out of gold. How do you make MORE profit to satisfy investors when you're already making insane amounts? New investors won't be so interested.

"but there's a market out there of 3 billion potential computer users who won't be able to afford Windows anytime soon, and have no preference in applications built up over the years. This is the market open source should really go after."

Open source already have another competitor in those markets;pirated windows.

I understand what you are saying, but my point is that the market will not become that of only "free" alternatives. There are many reasons why people would happily shell out a lot of money for a product, even if there are equal or superior alternatives that are free (in terms of $$).

While I Do not think Microsoft is dieing I do feel that they are feeling the squeeze of failure for the first time and relies that they are not the “golden boys” of information anymore. Let us examine Microsoft’s latest market entries.

X Box 360
This one is a hit I will admit it, but it is a hit because it’s the best value in gaming consoles at the moment. PS3 is prohibitively expensive and the Wii just does not deliver the goods in the realm of graphics.

Zune
Microsoft just did not get why the iPod is a success for one it looks grate but mainly it’s software. The iTunes Software is what sells the iPod . When I walk around campus I see iTunes on a lot of windows based pc’s Belonging to people who don’t have iPods who jumped over because its play list manager works so well.

Vista.
No offence to the vista lovers but so far the only “Wow” experience out of Vista has been the announcement of the ability to rollback to X.P. Many users don’t grasp that XP requires 512 MB of RAM to show its true colors the market is definitely nor ready for an OS that requires 2 GB of RAM enable to have a decent user experience.

At this point Vista’s main competitor is XP and so far it is loosing the fight to XP

( a am not Discrediting Linux I love the penguin but climate is climate)

Oh and by the way for the comment about grandmother not touching Linux. My grandmother won’t touch any computer.

If Microsoft, the monopoly, are figuratively at the "top of the hill", they have only two choices:

a) Slide down or
b) Make the hill bigger.

Microsoft have no hill left to climb. They either re-invent their business, or they lose market share. Quite simple.

I have heard it said here that its ok, because they have so much money that they can subsist on their spare cash for decades- even if they lose say 70% market share. There's a problem with that reasoning though, and the word is "shareholders".

The moment Microsoft start sliding down that market share hill, the slide will be rapid indeed, as shareholders divest their holdings. Shareholders are interested in growth. Or in other words, whether Microsoft can continue to grow their business?

To grow the company is becoming very hard simply because of the size of the hill. To make the hill bigger by 5% is easy if you are sitting on a small hill. When the hill is the size of Microsoft's hill, it's very hard indeed.

I doubt whether the words "Linux", "Google" or "Apple" are the ones that truly send cold shivers down Microsoft's spine. Rather, I believe the words to be "Negative Growth", "Economic instability", "Shareholder Confidence". Possibly words such as "China" have cropped up and contended for their attention.

I'm not asking whether this year (or for that matter decade) is the one in which Microsoft will fail. No-one in their right mind wants them to.

The question I am asking, is whether the event of Microsoft one day sliding down their monstrous hill, as is clearly inevitable, will result in worldwide economic disaster.

I love it how this piece of propaganda starts out: "When Linux started its real explosion, in 1998..." If by exploding you mean gaining only .71% market share after approximately 10 years, then that IS awesome. I’m sure Microsoft is running scared. Give me a break.

Using any current desktop Linux distro and OpenOffice is like using Windows 95 and Office 97. No wait... maybe Windows 98. At least plug and play works half way decent now.

I had extremely high hopes for Linux 10 years ago. I have used several distributions over the years and I have been disappointed with every single one of them. It does not seem like Linux distributors will ever get it. Linux continually lacks the innovation that will drive consumers to choose it over Windows or Mac OS. Taking a just enough or at best a sub-par feature parity approach just isn’t going to cut it…

Do you think that your mother, grandmother, sister, brother or any other average user cares whether their computer is running an open source OS? Do you really think that they care if they can modify the source code or the million other reasons why OSS is SOOOO great for the world?

So nice try on this one… but articles like this only prove my point. If the self righteous “Open Source Community” would step down from its high horse then maybe just maybe it might create something that consumers would want to use. I won't hold my breath...

I love it how this piece of propaganda starts out: "When Linux started its real explosion, in 1998..." If by exploding you mean gaining only .71% market share after approximately 10 years, then that IS awesome.

I guess the real explosion is by far yet to come! I might not agree with all issues raised in the article but I seriously believe that the only thing that can save MS future is not their big bucks but their future strategies. The nature of open source and specifically GPL licensed codes make their kind of explosion more like a mushroom. So in the begining it might look very slow but when they expand, nothing can possibly stop them.

By adding almost 3000lines of code each day and modifying another 3000, soon you will see that current core kernel developers will be overwhelmed by the number of patches they receive. Now, vendors are making real money on linux kernel. They will put far more pressure to get their patches integrated. Soon you will find that linux kernel would be by far the most advanced and most complex kernel available on the planet. So much that less vendors bother to go for anything else. They would through their peace of code in and take the big chunk out. Kind of win-win situation. I believe in a couple of years time, you will see the real thrust of linux.

I think if MS is going to have trouble with something it's the open source movement, as a whole not just Linux. Open Source is a competition MS is not used to, and I think it looks it's harder for MS to fight it's bettles with such an opponent.

As for MS winning losing... i don't care, i know who won my house and that's the OSS concept.

Which version is this ? ver. 1250 ? And nobody is getting tired of it.....

"We, FSF and Linux community, we are the Rebellion, and Microsoft is the Empire. We always win, can't they see ? We won in 'New Hope', 'Empire Strikes Back' and in 'Return of the Jedi', it is perfectly clear, isn't it ? And yet so many people keep using Microsoft/Empire ??!! There must be something seriously wrong with this world...."

The problem is that there are no real alternatives for people to go to other then windows. You have OSX, but the apple markup on hardware makes it unviable for office use. You have linux, but there is a real lack of professional apps on the platform.

Where is Adobe CS3? The gimp and inkscape, while coming very far in the last few years, dont even come close to PS and Illustrator. Where are apps like Cakewalk and Reason? The audio stack on linux is pure garbage, and even with kernel tweaks to decrease latency, the platform is still a few generations behind, and not usable for professional purposes. What about XSI or SoftImage? Sure, blender exists, but again, we need competitive professional products. As for OO.o vs Word, my girlfriend is in university still, and my mom is a professor. Both use word processors daily, and neither consider OO.o to be even close to word. Programming and server software are the only areas where you can professionally use linux (and I have), but where it really lags behind is in RAD stacks. There is nothing on the platform to compare to ASP.net or VB.net, so it is only really viable for larger scale projects which require more heavy duty technology.

The lack of killer home user apps and the complete lack of games is a side issue IMHO, the bigger problem is that you can't use it for 99% of what computers can be used for professionally, while with Windows or OSX you can. Where linux is king is servers, network devices (like firewalls), and in the scientific realm where osx and windows barely exist.

You might be right about graphics, but you are completely wrong about programming. Windows offer tools for Windows specific development only. In other areas, like Java, PHP there is no advantage on Windows side. I am a professional business application developer, and I don't even think about developing Windows only application. My apps are cross platform, either web apps or Swing GUI apps. Once I considered learning .Net, but I concluded that it is not worth my time.

Last time I used Microsoft Office was in the past milenium, so I can't compare it to OO. Yes, MS Office have some extra features, but how many common users know how to take advantage of them ? It might be faster, but is that so important ?

If Microsoft goes out of business tomorrow, that would be something that I would learn from newspapers. Then there would be no need to test my apps with MS SQL server and Internet Explorer, so I would be able to free one partition on hard disc.

Speaking of alternatives, I could run IE on Wine and Sybase ASE instead of MS SQL (they are SQL compatible),
so I could completely remove MS Software from my computers without a problem.

You might be right about graphics, but you are completely wrong about programming. Windows offer tools for Windows specific development only. In other areas, like Java, PHP there is no advantage on Windows side. I am a professional business application developer, and I don't even think about developing Windows only application. My apps are cross platform, either web apps or Swing GUI apps. Once I considered learning .Net, but I concluded that it is not worth my time.

I was a J2EE developer for years, and the only place I used windows was to test what it looked like on IE, and to use some windows other windows only apps (like outlook or our bug reporting system)

Now however, I am doing freelance work for small to medium sized businesses, which ends up as a mixture of desktop and webapps. I looked at what was there, and really, the only choice is ASP and VB. Oldschool asp really sucked, but at this point I wouldnt use JSP for anything but the largest scale enterprise apps. Nothing I have ever used does such a good job of bringing OO methodologies to web stuff. It isnt perfect, but I wouldnt consider PHP or JSP even close. And VB has gotten a serious overhaul as well. When I get a new contract, I am still so suprised by how much functionality I can get done before I even start writing code.

All that to say, I agree with you up to a point.

Last time I used Microsoft Office was in the past milenium, so I can't compare it to OO. Yes, MS Office have some extra features, but how many common users know how to take advantage of them ? It might be faster, but is that so important ?

I have only really used it to read specs, which is why i didnt give my opinion, I gave my girlfriends and my moms. My mom does lots of academic papers (that dont require equations), and she also has a small translation business going. She looked at OO.o, but she said it was around word 97, and vastly inadiquet for what she needs.

My gf is planning on getting a new computer, and I told her she should really invest in a new word processor while she is at it (she is on word 2000). I installed OO.o on my pimpin new HP Pavilion 9000 so she could give it a run, as she is on a limited budget and would really appreciate not having to spend an additional 300$. She gave it about fifteen minutes hunting down the features she uses, and her final opinion was that she could use it temporarily, but it would drive her nuts if that was more then a couple of months. I fired up the Office 2007 trial that came pre-installed on my machine for her, she fell in love with it and is now more then happy to shell out the extra money.

f Microsoft goes out of business tomorrow, that would be something that I would learn from newspapers. Then there would be no need to test my apps with MS SQL server and Internet Explorer, so I would be able to free one partition on hard disc.

You are in one of the very few sectors that one can make money off of the platform. Computers are used in virtually every industry nowadays, and linux is not viable for the vast majority of them. Thats the point I was trying to make.

IMHO he is wrong about graphics too. (I am a graphics pro, a good one.) I have not found any advantages in the Windows apps for a long time now. My daughter's Photoshop manual ( she is also in graphics and uses a Mac, but has no problems with my setup when she needs to use it) and my Gimp manual are the same size at around 1000 pages - not a lot of feature difference there.

Music? Well, since I introduced my musician friends to Linux there are two (so far) Windows installations lying unused in favour of 64studio Linux. They prefer it, and believe that pro quality sound is easier to achieve.

Whatever company is able to get the right formula of features + price in the high volume digital appliance market will make a killing. I'm not sure what that looks like or when it will come, but the OLCP & other clones I think are getting closer.

This is the worst case scenario for Microsoft. If they provide software for this market they lose their high margins because the low hardware cost and value of the product demands low software cost. If they try to compete in this market in a defining way by providing bogh the hardware and the software they risk utterly cannibalizing their own current high margin products.

Commoditization of useful electronics is going to happen, and it will change the market. When and how it will happen, whoever figures that out will end up a billionaire.

Given another 10 years, and Linux will be much better than Windows. Unless Microsoft puts out a really advanced operating system, people will flock to Linux, because it is going to be faster, safer, prettier, easier and cheaper than Windows.

Microsoft needs to create a really advanced operating system. Forget processes, threads, DLLs, windows, handles and files. Microsoft needs to come up with a radically different design, a revolutionary one that will give MS the technological edge for the years to come.